The boat of the dead lay low in the sea for so long that it grew legs and stalked ashore. It didn’t give a fragment of a fig for the customs or the passport checks, couldn’t spare a flying fish for the poorly phrased, officious forms designed to trip up boats and trick the dead into saying they’re alive. Security services slung sticks and stones to shatter its spirit, but the boat of the dead has spirit by the shedload that even words can’t shatter, so it just stamped its bony, barnacled legs and strode towards the city. Actions often speak louder than words and sometimes the dead speak louder than the living. The ships of all states are sinking, they said, and we are the dead come to claim our home. But the city had long since drowned in its own lack of compassion and all the guppy-gobbed princes stared with their rheumy saucer eyes that had never shed a single tear between them. Then the boat of the dead grew ragged black wings and scrabbled into the watery sky, trailing gory clouds. You can’t do that, said a man with a cap and a government app, but the boat blocked out the Sun.
Oz Hardwick
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